Monday, January 19, 2009

Time now for walking the talk!


The above cartoon is courtesy Keshav of the daily THE HINDU fame-who I am lucky to have studied along with-at school!! The election ballot -if converted into a cash box-would be apt for many of the businesses globally.

Be it President Elect Obama's vision, or the claim by HR experts about 90 million jobs likely to be available in India, there is an increasing fear that the services sector alone in India cannot save us from a possible recession!!

As a recruiter -I can see that people are getting tired of debating the 'slowdown' -and especially in India-about the Mumbai blasts and the Satyam saga. Over the last one week, I can distinctly see most of my clients getting 'real' and down to serious business. We have had some interesting sessions- with very clear expectations of SLAs, and innovative ideas of execution.

The order book is more than full than before- only this time around- almost all the openings are much tougher-with lesser room for compromise /error-and surely, no 'low lying fruit'!! Positions are across infrastructure, hospitality, IT products, SMEs, telecom -and yes, even some IT services companies choosing to beef up their practices -by hiring niche skills-in a bid to' grow' the business-visavis 'run a business'!!

On the supply side, there is a sense of 'wait and watch' adopted by most professionals- choosing to do their due diligence about the opportunities as much as possible- before nodding to an offer! A remarkable side effect -across levels, there is an increasing concern for stability and career growth..

The hurdles are more visible today..and yes, only the fittest will survive!!

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